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Customer Reviews

558 Reviews

5 star:		(266)
4 star:		(145)
3 star:		(57)
2 star:		(34)
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220 of 232 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Difficult, Worthwhile Read, September 13, 2002

By	"moonjava" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Things Fall Apart: A Novel (Paperback)

The first time I read this book, I hated it. Just flat hated it. That was my junior year of high school. Flash forward a few years to college, and it's on the reading list again. "Why, oh why?" I moan. Then I read the thing. And you know what I discover? It's a masterpiece.

Chinua Achebe describes "Things Fall Apart" as a response to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which is, comparatively, a denser, perhaps less accessible read. The parallels are there: the ominous drumbeats Marlow describes as mingling with his heartbeat are here given a source and a context. We, as readers, are invited into the lives of the Ibo clan in Nigeria. We learn their customs, their beliefs, terms from their language. Okonkwo, the main character, is the perfect anti-hero. He is maybe Achebe's ultimate creation: flawed, angry, deeply afraid but outwardly fierce. To have given us a perfect hero would have been to sell the story of these people drastically short. Achebe's great achievement is in rendering them as humans, people we can identify with. So they don't dress like Americans, or share our religious beliefs. Who's to say which method is correct, or if there has to be a correct and incorrect way. Achebe provokes thoughtfulness and important questions. His narrative is easy to read structurally, but the story itself is painful and frustrating. It is worthy of its subject.

"Things Fall Apart" provoked some of the best classroom discussions I've ever experienced. As a reader, it has enriched my life. My thanks to Achebe for his marvelous contribution to literature. This book has a permanent place on my shelves.

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149 of 162 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book, April 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Things Fall Apart: A Novel (Paperback)

The first two-thirds of "Things Fall Apart" is an affectionate description of the culture of an Ibo clan told from an insider's viewpoint, focusing on the life of Okonkwo, one of his tribe's most respected leaders. The customs and religion of the Ibo village are described with sympathy and simplicity, creating a sense of nostalgia for a way of life completely exotic to Western sensibilities, but making the reader feel the force and logic of a traditional culture seen from within. This idyllic description is clouded by the reader's awareness of the culture's fragility, a foreboding sense of pity and of looming disaster. Disaster comes, of course, in the shape of white missionaries. In the last part of the story, evangelizing Christians and English colonial administrators establish themselves in the Ibo village, and act to corrode and unravel the traditional life of the Ibo people. An escalating series of misunderstandings and conflicts between the whites and natives lead to the inevitable tragic ending. In the last paragraph of the novel, the perspective shifts suddenly to that of the English colonial adminstrator, and ends with one of the most powerful and affecting last lines of any novel I've read.

This book was thoroughly enjoyable, and I recommend it unreservedly.

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Things Fall Into Place, September 21, 2004

By	Eric J. Lyman (Roma, Lazio Italy) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Things Fall Apart: A Novel (Paperback)

The more the reader thinks about Things Fall Apart, the more he becomes aware that the heart of a story is about the struggles of an individual and less about what is a compelling and unsentimental survey of Nigeria's Ibo culture just before the arrival of white settlers.

The story's protagonist is Okonkwo, who at first appears to be a model warrior and self-made man who slowly discovers that the attributes he believed would serve him well as an adult instead breed a fear of failure and profound frustration. He is a complex and heavy-handed head of his household who is at once sympathetic and cruel.

Most of the story is told before the actual appearance of the first white settlers, but their pending arrival hangs over the middle part of the book like a rain cloud. By the time it actually happens in the last 50 or so pages of the book, Okonkwo has been driven into exile, his life a shambles. He has only a slim hope of redemption, and that is shattered by the arrival of the settlers.

Okonkwo's story is a relevant one even at a time when cultural and political imperialism has turned away from Africa toward the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. But more important than its relevance is its artistry: it is a deceptively simple epic tale somehow packed into just over 200 pages, and one of the most impressive first novels on record. Don't miss it.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Over-rated but worthwhile
A good book, but it reads like a rough draft for Achebe's "Arrow of God," which is similar in important ways but vastly superior.

Published 3 days ago by P. Dorfman

4.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking and beautiful - a classic
I read this book during my senior year of college - and some of the images still haunt me. I feel this is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking stories I have read. Read more

Published 5 days ago by Elisha R. Singer

1.0 out of 5 stars ugh
I read this twice for college lit and I can't stand it. It was slightly better the second time around but that didn't make me enjoy it any more. Read more

Published 12 days ago by A. M. Shook

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Story I've Ever Read!
This book has definitely earned the right to be called a CLASSIC! It gives the reader a good image of what it was like to be colonized by foreign powers that have no knowledge of... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Joseph Mckinney

4.0 out of 5 stars Book on Tape
My daughter used this book on tape when we traveled on spring break in the car for many miles. The item came very quickly and in good condition. Thanks.

Published 2 months ago by L. Dunlap

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to africa
An excellent work of literature. The book takes you into Africa, in a manner that makes you want to approve of things you are against
Chinua Achebe crafts such a powerful... Read more

Published 2 months ago by njedeh

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this for class...it was great
This book is scary. I had to read this last semester. Despite how harsh it is, it was compelling. I loved this book!

Published 2 months ago by SamanthaJoss

5.0 out of 5 stars A real West African perspective
An insight into traditional Ibo life written by an Ibo. The story takes you into the mind of a community and you are able to see and feel the effects of change, including... Read more

Published 2 months ago by reviewer101

5.0 out of 5 stars Still fresh and relevant
I first read this book in college over 15 years ago, and it's still as fresh and relevant today as it was then. Read more

Published 2 months ago by girlwithacurl

5.0 out of 5 stars Life was challenging but cohesive. And then the missionaries came!
This 1959 African novel is one of those small powerful books that held me captive until I finished reading it. It didn't take long. It is only 209 pages. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Linda Linguvic

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